Wish Upon a Cup
by munkinette
Summary: It came without mirrors, without either beans or hats, it came unexpectedly, a portal in the form of a... cup.
1. Chapter 1

_**My Rumbelle Secret Santa gift for the lovely allinthefoam! **_

_**Prompt: "homesick, date night, comfort, cuddles".**_

* * *

"_... for as long as you live in the past, you'll never find your future" _ said one of the older-than-life parchments Belle had some day found in the farthest, dustiest corner of her father's library. She knew it to be true, but she also knew that as long as she lived in her present, she'd never find that heroic future she so often dreamed of either.

The present... This was not how she would have imagined her last few days in a kingdom free of ogres go by. Spending her time with Gaston was so very different from what her father had hoped it would be for her, companionship and comfort farthest from the things the large man could not provide her with. Belle had known it ever since they'd spoken to one another for the first time, and yet it seemed to be her father's only joy in a time of mourning - to think her protected and cared for by someone other than himself -, that she didn't have it in her heart to deny him this.

And so she would allow her maids to braid her hair, dress her in the finest of garments, and she would put on the less exasperated smile she could muster as she'd unhurriedly make her way down to one of the castle's finest rooms, where Gaston would await her to share dinner, day after excruciating day. They were never alone, thank the gods, her governess a fierce defender of propriety, yet Belle had never felt lonelier than she did during those long hours spent with him. Lonelier than when the war broke loose, and she was forbidden to leave the castle grounds ever again, lonelier even than when, a little girl still, she'd finally understood why she had a governess instead of a mother.

Their conversation was stilted and hollow, none of her preoccupations shared by Gaston. She didn't ride and he didn't read, and he had a propensity to critique while hers was to appraise. He spoke of how he'd train their children, have them grow into mighty warriors feared in all the realms, and not of the knowledge their parents would bestow on them, or of how much they would be loved. Gaston grabbed her hand much too tight and kept it for far too long, and he rarely looked her in the eye. But that was for the best, Belle assumed, for his eyes scared her, all blunt coldness and little depth.

Tonight has been no different from their other dinners, which now, with the coming of Spring and King Maurice's insistence, draw out with a walk on the terrace until the time comes for Belle to retire to her chambers - she would huff and puff then, and swear the next evening she _will_ find a way to bribe the valets into moving all clocks forward.

There have been, however, a few silver linings; amongst them, the fact that Gaston clearly does not grasp the notion of taking a walk _together_.

So when his gait, much faster than Belle's own, leaves her behind once more, Belle plasters herself into a small nook between two walls, hiding from view and hoping he will be his usual slow self in coming back to look for her. She peeks from her hiding place, just enough to catch a glimpse of the man, still gesturing amply, completely engaged by his own speech on the best sword craftsmen in the realm, and Belle sighs in relief.

"Good riddance," she mutters, and sticks her tongue out at his sturdy shadow as it disappears around a corner. Slumping against the cold wall behind her, Belle is unsurprised, if not a little guilty, to find it a more amiable presence than Gaston's.

The early Spring air could stir her, the wide fields before her allure her, but it's this feeling, just now fully forming beneath cloak and silk and skin, which captures all her attention and makes her thumping heart sink. Oh, she has known it, and for quite some time, but now she can _feel _ it. She has truly become invisible; to Gaston, though she really doesn't mind _that_, but to her father as well, for how can he think that she is _happy_, and to this awaiting world, bright and beautiful yet forbidden to her for as long as the war ravages their lands and this charade of a betrothal continues. And... to herself. For how is she to know who she is if nobody ever sees _her_?

Belle lowers her gaze - she often does, these days -, and it's no surprise to her when her reflection in the wine glass she's been holding starts swirling, because she can feel tears burning in her eyes. She tries to be brave, wills herself to blink them away, but when one disobedient teardrop defies her and falls into her glass, managing to entwine itself with the fleeting reflection of a falling star, she cannot help but wish for freedom. And future.

But... the liquid... it does not stop its whirling and twirling, and now the small glass is shaking in her even smaller hands, and Belle's eyes widen to plates when the kaleidoscope of patterns and colours finally stills and an image other than her own settles onto the surface.

The image of a man. A strangely looking man, with dragon hides as clothes and scales where skin should be, with curly hair and equally curled nails, dark and claw-like as he scrapes them at his chin. And as she watches him, transfixed, the only thought Belle can grasp is that he has a tired, forlorn look upon his face akin to that of a traveller who has seen much but returned home to little. If she's to judge from the faint noises coming out of her glass - voices hushed and coins dropping -, the man is in an inn or tavern. He seems to stare without seeing, but that is until his reptilian eyes focus on what Belle can only assume is his own drink, and he frowns. And _giggles_.

"How drunk am I?" he titters, and Belle's mouth gasps open.

"You... you can see me?" She asks, less than a whisper, for she is afraid whatever magic has caused _this _ would shatter lest she does more.

"Dearie, I can also see that horrific tapestry, or whatever that at your back is, but it doesn't make it any more _real_," he says as he points in Belle's general direction with a shaky, somewhat inebriated finger.

"What?" Belle frowns and turns, only to find herself facing an all too colourful painting of Kings George and Midas returning victoriously from the battlefield.

"No, wait, that _is_ real, _I_ am real!"

"Well, then you should take advantage and burn it," the man dismisses nastily, making to rise.

"I might," Belle chuckles, and _that_ seems to get his attention.

"My… my name is Belle. Please… don't leave?" She asks, words a delicate flame of hope flickering in the night's breeze, and when did that small, _needy_ whimper became _her voice_? Her words seem to have an effect on him, however, because he sags back into his chair, a half-intrigued, half-amused look playing in his eyes. As carefully as she can, Belle places her glass on the banister, away from the threat of trembling fingers.

"You would speak to a figment of the ale, _Belle_?" Comes his reply from inside the glass, his tone less sharp weapon, warmer.

"I would speak to _you_. And I'm having wine, just so you know. I've… never tasted ale," Belle mutters embarrassedly.

"Why ever not?"

"Well, I've never been to a tavern, for one. And they don't serve ale in court, for some reason..." she trades off, brows and nose scrunched in her attempt to make sense of the nobility's drinks of choice.

"Am I in a tavern, then?" The man asks, and there's a playful tone to this new-found, warmer voice of his, one Belle thinks she might come to enjoy hearing more of.

"Aren't you?" Belle grins, and he counters:

"Are you in court?"

"Why yes, yes I am", she answers with a deep curtsy… that he probably cannot see anyway, Belle realizes belatedly. "So, what are you doing in a tavern?"

"I haven't said… " He sighs, deflated. "What am I doing indeed, drinking off my wits to the point of talking to a foolish girl through an... alcoholic portal."

Belle chooses to ignore words such as "girl", "foolish" and "lost wits", instead focusing on the more important one. "Is that what this is, a portal?" Her eyes widen with the ramifications of this, a bundle of excitement instantly forming inside her chest.

"Why are you asking?" His eyes narrow to slits of suspicion.

"Oh, why must you be so thick?" Belle throws up her hands in exasperation.

"Well, why must you be so curious?"

"I… I cannot leave my home," comes Belle's late reply, words reluctant in forming and voice the feeblest she has ever heard herself. "So I don't get many opportunities to hear tales other than war recounts of doom and dread. Not anymore, not in this land. That is why I'm asking."

She searches his eyes then, willing him to understand there is innocence beneath her questions, for it is obvious he has things and people to fear - and Belle does not want to be one of them -, things to hide and his own nastiness to hide behind, but he is obstinately evading looking at her, instead focusing on his hands as they fiddle with the cuffs of his very peculiar coat. But Belle too knows to wait. She has been waiting all her life.

When he finally speaks, there is no trace left of the earlier sing-song in his voice:

"I am afraid I do not have any merry stories to tell you either, my lady."

And when he finally meets her eyes, his own heartbreakingly oscillating between hopelessness and hopefulness, Belle cannot help the small, compassionate smile that grazes her features.

"Then maybe we can make up a few stories, together," she says.

When he stands still like this - has she managed to surprise him? - so stock still that not even a blink of his eye is between them, and Belle can get a closer look at him, well, he still looks _strange_, but she thinks she could easily get used to his kind of strangeness. When she doesn't have to divide her attention between grand gestures or focus all her concentration on deciphering the meaning behind his tangle of words, it is almost as if she can see another man entirely, gazing at her from behind a mask. But right before she can see _him_, the moment dissolves with the crunching of pebbles beneath heavy boots alerting Belle of another, highly undesirable presence.

"Oh, no!"

"What? What is it?" He asks, confused.

"Gaston is coming back." She has forgotten all about Gaston!

"Who?"

"Just my oaf of a betrothed," Belle says glumly.

"No love lost there, I see," he chuckles. "Well, you'd better stop talking to yourself, dear. Wouldn't want your betrothed to break the engagement on counts of you going bonkers."

"I am not talking to myself," Belle pouts, "and I would definitely want him to do just that!"

Judging from the stupefied look on his face - and Belle gets that look directed at her quite often - he has no idea of what she's saying.

"I'm sorry, I have to go. Will... will I see you again? I mean, the portal… Do you think we'll ever meet... again?" She finishes lamely.

"Dearie, I'm not even sure we _have_ met," he speaks to her tenderly, as if to sooth a child, and it only makes Belle want to keep _this_, for them to keep seeing each other. But she cannot say that to him, can she?

"Right… Well, then… enjoy your ale. And… have a good life."

"Goodnight, Belle," he says, gracing her with the beginning of his first smile, tugging at the corner of his mouth.

"Goodnight, thick man whose name I still don't know," she says affectionately.

"Rumplestiltskin," she hears him whisper just as his image inside her glass fades away.

Belle has to support her weight on the banister, lest her shaking knees send her toppling to the castle floor. _R-Rumple…_ The shock of her discovery is almost as great as the shock of feeling Gaston's overly-muscular arm sneak up her side, but instead of the horrifying embrace she has come to expect, Belle watches appalled as Gaston grabs her glass, greedily gulps down her wine, then throws the empty glass over the banister.

"No!" Belle shrieks, moving to save the all-too-precious item from his hands and arriving too late.

"What? We have plenty of wine, Belle," Sir Gaston declares, voice booming.

"How positively primeval of you, Gaston," Belle admonishes, turning on her heels and leaving Gaston behind in his most common state: mouth hanging open.

Belle didn't need assistance from her maids in undressing for bed that night, so furious she practically yanked her dress and underthings off of her, and when she watched the chambermaids bring in scalding water for her bath, the thought of drowning Gaston in it passed her mind. Who did he think he was, drinking up her wine, destroying her glassware?

The warm bath failed to calm her anger, Belle soon realized as she found herself slamming the door to her bath chamber shut behind her. She took a sit at her dresser, occupying her hands with plucking hairpins free and sending them rattle on the wooden floors. Of course it was not the loss of the physical items that irritated her, but the loss of a connection, of conversations and timid smiles, of whatever else that _portal_ could have signified for her and… Rumplestiltskin.

The Dark One. Nefarious, treacherous, intriguing Rumplestiltskin… Of course she knew about him, about her father's absolute refusal to seek his help in vanquishing the Ogres. Belle grinned as she abandoned her fuzzy slippers on the floor and cuddled inside her wool blanket. She would have to raid the library tomorrow for all books she could find on him. She needed to know more. Yes, she shall peel all layers and uncover everything there is to know about _Rumplestiltskin_.


	2. Chapter 2

Belle slept poorly that night, all her excitement for the events of the day preventing her from closing an eye. She felt it in the butterflies raiding her stomach, in the warmth of her cheeks and the obnoxious heaviness of blankets, felt it radiating off of her and sneaking out of her chambers to seep into ever brick of the castle, into every book in her library and every drop of their wine. It changed the world around her, made it brighter and _there_, and filled her heart with hopes, her head with thoughts of _again_ and _more_. And when she finally, stubbornly, managed to close her eyes, it also sneaked into her dreams and mingled with all too present fears and long forgotten plans to show her glimpses into the past and various outcomes for her future. In lesser words, it was the best bad night's sleep Belle has ever had.

The following day Belle spent barricaded inside the library, digging up every tome she could find that spoke of the Dark One and ending up rather displeased with what she'd found, for neither depiction of him felt _truly_ accurate.

The clerical books described him as evil incarnate, a malevolent imp from whose sinister ways anyone who had ever had the misfortune of dealing with him had to be cleansed. Belle skimmed through those pages, unconvinced that evil was to be fought with a greater evil.

The castle's library was sparse on books regarding magic, and the couple that Belle did manage to find mostly referred to fairy magic, the counterpoint to Rumplestiltskin's. It was why Belle was most surprised when, in one of them, she spotted a note written in the smallest of letters about how the Dark One was to be summoned; apparently, incanting his name three times was far more efficient than wailing into one's own misery, which was the common way of summoning the fairies. Belle also found mentions of objects such as mirrors, slippers and beans that could easily act as portals within or between realms, but none of the recollections bore any resemblance to what she had witnessed the other day.

The historical books seemed to Belle to be the most reliable. They treated the ill repute of the Dark One as something universally acknowledged, and proceeded to merely register his apparitions throughout kingdoms and centuries. He was often depicted as interfering with the course of wars and the policies of kingdoms, though the reasons for his support for one party or the other always remained a mystery.

The oldest entry that bore Rumplestiltskin's name was also the one that most touched Belle. It spoke of how he had stopped the First Ogre War - the one that had lasted for more than fourteen years and whose casualties were ever so severe that they ended up bringing _children_ to the battlefield -, and of how he had led those children home.

Then came innumerable stories of Rumplestiltskin causing mischief here and there, trading for babes, striking his nefarious deals that most often than not left the people who summoned him with less than they originally possessed. He could make people dance on his golden threads without them ever noticing, this Rumpelstiltskin. He could spot weakness like no other, have it grow as a weed inside the souls of the desperate while his alluring words would promise them to mend it. He always warned on the price of his magic, however, but it seemed that very few took the time to ponder on it or inquire about what that price actually _was_.

By the time evening fell again, Belle was at least feeling a little closer to understanding why Rumplestiltskin seemed impossible to understand. He had met so many men, played a different character for each of them, layered himself so much that he ended up losing himself, losing who he had once been. But that man was still there, layers of scales, skin and soul deep, the man who had saved a thousand children from certain, horrifying death. She would start trying to understand him from there. But she would start… tomorrow.

Exhausted, Belle decided to excuse herself from dinner and Gaston's company on counts of an imaginary headache, which turned into an all too real one the moment she found herself alone in her chambers and trying to fall asleep. It wasn't new to her - spending an entire day reading did take its toll on her sometimes -, it was just… annoying.

After a couple of hours of tossing and turning and not managing anything but entangling herself further in the bedclothes, Belle huffs and sneaks out of her room. She makes her way to the kitchens, not a single soul around to lecture her on how improper it is when she does not call upon her maids in the middle of the night or when she traverses the castle's corridors in nothing but her nightgown - that, Belle concedes, she hasn't thought through. But she _has_ made it to the kitchens undisturbed, and so she merrily puts a kettle on the stove, and soon enough she has fetched herself a nice, steaming cup of tea. Belle scurries back to her room, porcelain warm in her hands, pleased with at least this small adventure and the absence of any watchful eye of guard or maid to spoil it. A princess fetching herself her own cup of tea, how rebellious… Belle is just about to let out a self-deprecating laugh when she opens the door to her room and, as light falls upon her, she spots something in her tea. No, not something, _someone_.

"Rumplestiltskin!" She shrieks, and there is no way to hide the contentment in her voice.

Her shock at seeing him again so soon is short-lived, quickly making way to cheerfulness, but her clumsiness surely isn't, and as she rushes inside the room, she winces when her cup and then her shoulder collide with the door frame. She doesn't pay much attention to herself, though, her sole focus on Rumplestiltskin. This time he is seated near a large wheel… _The Spinner_, the words from her books supply… and yes, it is his spinning wheel, of course.

He too jumps in surprise at her voice, and it takes him several moments before he stares down at his own cup and sees her.

"What are you trying to do, make me prick my finger? That might prove… tedious," he says, but Belle can tell there is no real mortification in his words, mainly… curiosity.

"I'm sorry, I was just so happy to see you", she smiles at him. "The wine was gone, you see… the glass, too… and you said… I just, I thought I might never get to see you again."

"Happy to see me, you say?" His brows furrow, and he seems quite puzzled now, yet Belle is quite delighted.

"Very much so! Don't you see? This means we can communicate! It was not just a one time happenstance!"

"You mean to say I won't be able to get rid of the pesky little thing popping uninvited in my drinks?" Rumplestiltskin wiggles his eyebrows, and Belle wishes for a larger portal so she can throw something at him. A pillow, perhaps?

"Nope," she declares instead, grinning. Rumplestiltskin watches her attentively as she gently cradles her teacup in her hands and cuddles herself back into bed, pulling a stray pin out of her hair.

"What are you doing?" He asks, dumbfounded.

"Just making myself comfortable", Belle says as she leans on her mountain of pillows and pulls the blanket to her lap.

"Comfortable… with a monster in your chambers…"

"There is no monster under my bed, Rumplestiltskin. I checked when I was four," Belle says sternly. She can hear his sigh more than she can see it, and takes it as a small victory.

"Were you spinning straw into gold, like the books about you say?"

"I-I was, yes."

"Why?"

"Why what?"

"Why do you spin? You probably already have more gold than you could ever spend."

"Indeed I do. Is... is your cup chipped?" Rumplestiltskin suddenly asks, frowning.

"What?"

"Your cup. There's a piece of it missing," he repeats, pointing a finger at her.

"Oh… I might have bumped into the door frame when I came in," Belle says, cheeks aflame.

"Careful not to choke on the chip then, dearie," Rumplestiltskin cackles.

"Oh, shush," Belle says but she can't suppress a snicker of her own. He laughs at that.

"I don't suppose you have a potion against clumsiness," she adds playfully.

"It helps me forget."

"The potion?" Belle frowns.

"Spinning straw into gold."

"Oh…"

A silent moment passes between them, not uncomfortably. Belle is the one to break the silence.

"How do you take your tea, Rumplestiltskin? It is tea what you're having, right?"

"Just like my soul, dearie. Black," he grins at her and bends slightly over his own cup.

"I think… two lumps of sugar," Belle counters.

"Nothing about me is sweet, dear, and neither is my tea," he declares, matter-of-factly.

Belle cocks an eyebrow expectantly.

"Three lumps, a spot of milk," Rumplestiltskin says begrudgingly, and Belle giggles.

"So we're having sweetened tea tonight. Together. Deal with it."

Rumplestiltskin blinks once, twice, and purses his lips. He looks at her long moments after that, only looks, strange eyes curious and warmer than before, and Belle finally gets to _look_ at him as well.

There was no one in the remaining sips of her tea, in the dimness of her room to greet Belle good morning. She couldn't tell exactly when she had fallen asleep, but it must have been some time after Rumplestiltskin resumed his spinning. The rhythmic sounds of his wheel lured her into closing her eyes, and when she drifted into peaceful dreams, she knew that any headache had long since been forgotten.

* * *

"Rumple…" Belle stops herself at the sight in her cup, the sorcerer with his eyes closed, laying back in an imposing chair, looking every bit as tired and old as the books speak of him.

"I'm awake," comes Rumplestiltskin's too quick reply, and it is quite obvious that his words are slurred with sleep.

"I'm sorry."

"What are you sorry for? I was not sleeping," he assures. "The Dark One doesn't _nap_."

"Of course he doesn't," says Belle, shaking her head. "What have you been working on that has got you so tired?"

At that Rumplestiltskin looks at her sharply, and Belle immediately regrets her question. Too bold, too soon.

"Something _evil_, dearie," he chirps.

"It's quite dark in there," Belle frowns, trying to peek around his chair and see more of the room he's in.

"It's the Dark Castle, dear, it's supposed to be _dark_," he says wryly. "Besides, it's past midnight. It's dark where you are, too."

"I think you keep it that dark on purpose. So that no one can peer inside, discover any of your secrets. Is… is it really that late? I lost track of time reading… again," Belle says sheepishly.

"So you did."

"Would you like if I read something to you? Considering it's too dark in your castle to read properly," Belle snickers, and Rumplestiltskin eyes her warily.

"I… I wouldn't object. If you aren't too tired, that is."

"I am not," she smiles.

* * *

"What _are_ you doing up there?"

It is Belle's turn to jump in surprise when Rumplestiltskin's voice resounds loud and clear throughout the halls of her library. In her hunt for a very particular book, she has forgotten all about her chipped cup, waiting for her on the table, filled with what has once been hot tea.

"You shouldn't scare me when I'm up on a ladder," she chides gently. "I could have fallen to my demise."

"My apologies, my lady. I shall have the magic remember it."

One early morning, a couple of weeks ago, Belle was rinsing her face in a clear bowl of fresh, cold water only to plunge her hands into the image of Rumplestiltskin, soaking into his own steaming bath. After that… incident, Rumpelstiltskin had promised to look into this magic portal of theirs, and give them some control - and with it, some degree of privacy - over how and when they could speak to one another, so that such kind of situation would not repeat itself. Belle couldn't tell at that time if it was her own reflection in the water of if Rumpestiltskin had actually _blushed_ underneath his scales. What he did then was to restrict the magic, so that only Belle's chipped cup and a cup of his own would act as a portal between them.

"Well, now that you are here, maybe you could help me find a book? I've been looking for it all morning, it must be around here somewhere."

"What book, my dear?"

"Her Handsome Hero. It's about a magic castle, a prince in disguise, and…"

"Oh, I think you are better off without that one, dear," Rumplestiltskin scoffs. "You know, I could maybe suggest some other books to you… I have a rather large library, after all" he grins.

"You do?" Belle's eyes lit up. "Do tell me more!"

They spend that entire afternoon together, well, with Rumplestiltskin pacing through his own library, pointing to one book or another, and Belle catching glimpses of them all in her cup. He has books littered _everywhere_, scattered upon the floor, open or interlaced with another, stacks holding each other upright, and the room itself seems _enormous_, the largest and, surprisingly, brightest room Belle has ever seen.

He keeps moving past different sections of his library, and Belle finds herself wishing that she could be _there_, with him. She doesn't dwell on this new and a bit alarming feeling, instead rejoices in the content look upon Rumplestiltskin's face. He seems at peace, and quite pleased with himself, and for some reason, that pleases Belle, too.

Eventually he has to leave her - something about a magic wand and a nuisance he has to dispel from his castle -, and Belle, in the most private corner of her heart, wishes she could be there with him for that, too.

But when the time comes for her to suffer yet through another dinner with Gaston, she finds that she doesn't have to, that he will not be there and soon he, nor she, will be _anywhere_ at all. News from the battlefield come, and the war council meets. Avonlea has fallen, and with it, their last hope of repelling an Ogre's attack.

* * *

"Belle?" Comes the tentative voice of Rumplestiltskin and she nearly breaks a toe in rushing to her cup. It's residing in its usual place on her nightstand, the place it has occupied for the past couple of months.

"Hey," Belle whispers.

"Hey," he replies, and there's that smile again, that extremely small yet immensely warm smile that she has come to think, no, _hope_, he's reserved just for her.

"You have lovely ceilings, have I told you that before?" He adds playfully, a flourish to his hand.

Belle laughs, but it's weak and watery.

"What's wrong, sweetheart?" He's suddenly serious, but it's not his menacingly serious look from before. He is compassionate now, and slightly frightened.

Sniffing, Belle tells him all about the Ogres, about how her father and his army are now powerless to stop them, about how they will soon bring ruin and death to her kingdom. To _herself_. Rumplestiltskin listens, ponders, gives her the most unreadable of glances, and speaks:

"Summon me."

Belle's eyes widen. In all the time they have spent together, she hasn't really thought of Rumplestiltskin as the deal maker. Yes, she has kept that information, and everything else that she had learned from her books, in her mind, but she also kept all his words and little glances and sweet gestures close to her heart. Now it seems that she must bring together those two halves of him.

"You could…"

"Banish an entire army of Ogres? Gladly," he grins, and Belle's face explodes into a smile of its own accord.

"For a price."

"Oh… of course," Belle says, biting her lip. "And what would your price be, Rumplestiltskin?"

There comes that unreadable look of his again, yet Belle is relieved to realise she's unafraid. She could refuse his deal, she knows, but for some reason she also knows that she will not have to, that his price to her will be fair. She _trusts_ him.

"You," the word catches in his throat, barely a whisper.

She trusts him… but, for the life of her, she has no idea how to respond to _that_, no idea what it even _means_… but it seems that her body does, for her knees start trembling and she can feel her cheeks blushing furiously. She has _never_ felt like this, and he is watching her, frozen on the spot and more terrified than she is, waiting for her answer, flexing his fingers nervously at his side, and her heart is pounding so hard that she's afraid it will jump out of her chest and find its way into his, and all of this can only mean one thing, that there is but one answer she can give him. For bravery to follow, she has to do the brave thing first.

"Then you can have me."

Rumplestiltskin's lips part as if he has forgotten how to speak, but she can see it, in the way his posture slightly relaxes and his eyes brighten suspiciously. He wasn't expecting her to agree, and now he is _so_ uncertain in the face of acceptance.

How can he not _know _ how much their time together means to her? And how could _she_ be unaware of it until now? Unaware that he has made her home more of a home to her than it ever was; that he has been her adventure, the only person in her world she wasn't invisible to, the only one who would _listen_; that he has helped her find herself. She has wished for future and now he is offering her one, and one for her people as well.

"Good, good thing," he finally says, and it's a small and confused noise in his throat, his eyes so wide that Belle thinks they could easily swallow her whole.

"You will really do this for me?" She asks, her own eyes bright with tears, just like that evening when she has met him for the first time.

"Oh, I rather think I'm doing it for me, Belle. You see, I've grown quite used to having someone's company. To having _you_ keep me company. To being… not unhappy."

"Would you share a drink with me?" Belle suddenly asks. "A toast. For… for the future. For _our_ future?" She smiles and raises her chipped cup in her hands.

"For our future," he rasps, his voice warm and trembling as he raises his own cup to his lips.

And they both take a sip at their tea. An almost kiss.

That night Belle retires to her chamber brimming of wonder, the grin on her face not fading once as she takes her bath and slips into her nightgown. Putting out the only candle's flickering flame and gently caressing her chipped cup, she slips into bed, cuddling her pillow under the heavy wool blankets. All she can think of, as her eyes slowly drift shut, is that tomorrow they will summon Rumplestiltskin, that he would come to help them win the war against the Ogres, and then she and her little chipped cup will embark on a new adventure. She couldn't be happier with what Rumplestiltskin has chosen as his price. She cannot wait for their deal to be struck.


End file.
